From these pussy willows hang many a tale

Thursday

Apr 8, 2010 at 2:00 AM

One bunch of pussy willows brightens our home all year long with seasonal cheer.

One bunch of pussy willows brightens our home all year long with seasonal cheer.

When I bring out the Halloween pumpkins and black cats and witches from the basement, I also unpack decorated gourds from Peru and some beautiful beaded glass balls that I bought right here in Hyannis from Wampanoag craftswomen. These ornaments hang on the pussy willows through Thanksgiving, after which I replace them with a selection of Christmas whimsies – angels, cats, ballerinas, travel souvenirs, things I made over the years, things from my mother, even one fragile glass pear complete with a rosy blush that I remember on my grandmother’s tree.

I mix or match the Christmas ornaments, depending upon whether I’m in the mood for mostly white or mostly color, with some snowflakes and glass icicles that will stay on through the winter and Valentine’s Day, when all the heart-shaped ornaments I own come out. There are Hungarian embroidered hearts, hearts made from seashells, even a heart-shaped scene of a steam locomotive pulling into a snowy station.

St. Patrick’s Day finds the pussy willows decked out with a green globe that bears “An Irish Blessing” that reads, in part, “Wit is something to treasure, Charm is something to live…Joy is something to feel, Trust is something to find…” There’s also a St. Brigid’s cross, braided from straw, that a friend sent me after a trip to Ireland.

All year long, we display a little crocheted shade-pull that Minott and Ann left behind when we bought their house, and a portrait of our cat painted by the Patriot’s nature writer, Mary Richmond.

The cat is, of course, the reason we don’t do a Christmas tree any more. The pussy willows don’t tempt her, there’s no bacteria-laden water she might try to drink, and we don’t disturb her safe and comfortable universe by dragging a tree in and then out again.

But Easter is the real glory of the pussy willow tree, and for many heartwarming reasons.

It’s probably 35 years ago now that my parents went on a vacation in Europe that found them in Austria on Palm Sunday. There, my mother said, the custom in churches is not to give palms, but pussy willows, which people take home to decorate with painted eggshells and other symbols of new life.

After my parents’ trip, my mother gave me a bunch of pussy willows and some little wooden eggs. Soon, I started to collect miniature baskets, and bunnies, and eggs, and crosses. Every Easter our pussy willows blossom with them. I even found a little rabbit of pink satin that I made myself as a child, with some help from my grandmother’s sister, who embroidered a carrot on the bunny and sewed on a little tail made from a cotton ball. (This was the same great-aunt who got me interested in astronomy.)

The tradition of the pussy willow tree goes back to our newlywed days in Boston, and it bears one memory especially that lifts it beyond the realm of mere decoration.

Sometime in the late 1970s we met Patty, a skinny, freckled, brown-eyed ball of energy. Patty was the captain of her own ship. She didn’t ask. She commanded.

One day, she informed us that she would be spending a night at our house. We were glad to oblige, as if we had a choice. We set a date with her parents, and began to plan entertainment for a 6-year-old who never sat still.

Making pizza was first, after we’d walked her from her home to ours and watched her climb every wall and play on every ride in the playground that was on the way. Patty didn’t like the smell of the “east” in the dough, but she did like the pizza.

Next, she hung all of my scarves, and I have a lot, from the rafters of our canopy bed.

Finally, because the next day was Palm Sunday, we made some ornaments and decorated the “pussy whistles,” as she called them, and as we have called them ever since, a special reminder that life is not so much about the ornaments as about the living.

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